Reducing Cravings With Breath Awareness
The level of sensitivity that we’re born with is a gift. The intensity of feeling is also the first to be disrupted as the world happens all around us. Our formative years, when we develop lifetime behavior patterns, are within the first eight years of our lives. We create behavioral responses to what we perceive as safe or dangerous, which repeatedly inform us as we develop. Some might say that perceived threats exist from current or past life experiences or ancestral wounding.
Whether we’re working through generational trauma, past life karma, or current life circumstances, safe containers are necessary for healing. As compassionate beings, a technique that calms provides temporary relief. The more extreme any of these circumstances, the greater feeling of normalcy one understands.
I’ve had an intimate relationship with cravings over the years, and I’ve learned to listen when I want to reach for something outside of
myself for comfort. This is an awareness practice, putting space between yourself and the stimulus. We practice not repelling a negative feeling or clinging to a good one — then becoming curious about what we’re witnessing instead of being judgmental. Curiosity can be explored through self-discovery questions like “What does this mean? Is it a repetitive pattern of feeling throughout my life? What causes it to surface? What helps me to understand these feelings.” One of the most successful ways to do this is by slowing down.
I began to recognize my level of sensitivity to the world around me once I had kids. I spent the first ten years out of college entrenched in my career, and I was one of the few of my friends who graduated college and went straight into a job I’d studied for. Not because I was a great student but because my patterning told me I wasn’t good enough unless I did all these things. I unconsciously achieved the standard life expectations of college,
career, marriage, kids, white picket fence, and all.
Through unconscious conditioning, lifestyle, and genetics, I developed a degree of unconscious dependence on tobacco and alcohol. As alcohol went from a social norm to something that affected my mental state — depression and anxiety resulted from my consumption. It wasn’t until I decided to give it all up for a prolonged period that I found transformation in sobriety.
Now I’m able to remain content with limited indulgences every now and again. This is not the case for everyone, but it is possible for me. I credit breathwork for this. It was a continual opening and clearing through the practice and having a community of support that was doing the same thing. In this significant reset, I got more clarity about my cravings and what caused me to desire outside comfort.
I have met very few people who don’t have a relationship or craving dependence to some degree of addiction to something such as coffee, sugar, shopping, cigarettes, social drinking, sex, or something else. It’s just a matter of what it’s toward and how much we connect with it. We know when we’re giving our power away to something or someone else. It helps to have a community when breaking self-sabotaging behavior to support
and serve as a mirror. The support of community allows one to build trust in oneself for long-term discipline.
Who you surround yourself with matters. Relationships have come and gone in my life more frequently since taking this path. It requires clear discernment and the ability to uphold boundaries when you usually engage in self-sacrificing behavior. It requires grace and allowing imperfection. I’ve never lived more fully. This doesn’t mean life is easy, but it’s worth it.
